Kate
by BetweenSunAndMoon
Summary: The Master of Ballantrae - Katharine Durie thinks about her relationships with her father and her uncle.


Her uncle had been the only one to ever call her Kate.

Her grandfather, mother, and brother (and her father, when he deigned to speak to her) called her Kathie, the servants called her Miss Katharine, and the public called her the Honourable Katharine Durie. But her uncle, upon being introduced to her, had said, "Katharine is such a very long name for so small a child. Would you mind terribly if I called you Kate?"

No, she had not minded, not at all.

"Tell me about the pirates, Uncle James!" she would beg, and he would laugh and take her on his knee and tell her the most wonderful stories about fighting in Prince Charlie's army, battles on the high seas, places he had been in France, and meeting natives in the American wilderness. Her mother would sit nearby and listen and shake her head, but Kate knew she was every bit as enraptured by Uncle James's stories as Kate herself was.

Uncle James was so very different from Father. Father never went anywhere, except to town; Uncle James had gone on all sorts of adventures. Father couldn't sing a note; Uncle James sang beautifully. Father never paid her a bit of attention; Uncle James was always ready to spend time with her.

"Why doesn't Father love me?" she had often asked Mother.

Mother had replied, "Don't say such things, Kathie. Your father loves you; he just doesn't know how to show it."

"Why doesn't Father know how to show that he loves me?" she had once asked Uncle James.

Uncle James had smiled at her in a way that was not entirely nice, and answered, "Because he hates me and thinks me a wicked man, and we are so much alike, you and I."

Katharine supposed he was right. Some who had known her father and uncle remarked on how much Alexander resembled his father and Katharine resembled her uncle, at least in appearance. This did not surprise her in the least.

She remembered the night Uncle James left. It was a frosty winter night, late in February, when he came into her room alone.

"Kate," he said quietly, "if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone, not even your mother?"

She nodded. "I promise, Uncle James. What is it?"

"I'm going away tonight. It's a secret, but I thought I should come and say farewell to you before I leave."

"Where are you going?"

"I cannot say."

"Will you come back?"

"I expect I shall, though not for a long time."

As she opened her mouth to ask another question, he held up his hand. "No more questions. Come here."

They embraced, and Kate burst out with, "I don't want you to go!"

"I don't want to go either, Kate, but I must. The time has come to say farewell."

"Farewell, Uncle James."

"Farewell, Kate."

He left her room. The next morning, he was gone, and no one knew where. But Father fell dreadfully ill that same day, and Uncle James was seemingly forgotten.

Then Alexander was born, some months after Father recovered, and Katharine discovered the truth. Father didn't love her, not in the way he loved Alexander. He never had. He never would.

Uncle James loved her. She was certain he did. She wished he would come back.

And when he did come back, accompanied by his strange Indian friend Secundra Dass, Father and Mother wasted no time leaving with Katharine and Alexander. They had stolen out of their own house like thieves in the night, journeyed down to the harbor, boarded a ship, and sailed across the ocean to America. Uncle James eventually followed them, and visited Father, though Katharine had not seen him.

After a time, Father and old Mr. Mackellar went away on a trip together, but while they were away, a letter from Mr. Mackellar arrived bearing terrible news: Both Father and Uncle James were dead, and buried out in the wilderness.

Katharine had wept long and hard, though she did not know whom her tears were for.

Nowadays, Katharine and Alexander lived quietly and simply in their ancestral home. Neither of them had ever married, and they were not rich (Uncle James's fault, according to Mr. Mackellar), but they got on as well as a brother and sister could, and she supposed they were as happy as any two people could be.

In her younger days, she had privately lamented the lack of enough money to travel to any of the marvelous places Uncle James had told her about. But that was in the past, and she was content to be what she was.

Not Henry Durie's daughter, but James Durie's niece.

And if her uncle had been as wicked a man as some people, Mr. Mackellar chief among them, made him out to be…she couldn't say she didn't care, but in the end, what did it really matter? He was dead; he could do nothing more, good or wicked, to anyone. To her, he would always be her Uncle James, who told stories and sang like an angel and always had kind words for her when her own father had none.

There was nothing she could find wrong with that.


End file.
